— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) October 15, 2021
Joseph initially hit Larkin from behind along the boards before the Red Wings forward punched him as he was skating away. Joseph was slow to get up and didn't return for the remainder of the game.
Larkin also suffered an injury on the play and wasn't able to practice Friday. Head coach Jeff Blashill said he was "pissed off" that Larkin had to defend himself from the hit and that there was no penalty on Joseph for hitting him "in the numbers," according to the Detroit Free Press' Helene St. James.
We bounced back in a big way on Thursday night with two relatively easy wins. The Blue Jackets pummelled the Coyotes, 8-2, while the Stars and Rangers combined for just four goals in regulation, ensuring a clean win on the under of six goals.
We'll look to keep the good times rolling as we head into a busy weekend of sports.
I was hoping to be on the Devils in this game - we're going to be fading the Blackhawks a lot this year - but, sadly, there isn't enough value on the line because of their injury concerns.
The Devils will be without starting goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood due to a heel issue. They're also missing their second pairing of Ty Smith and Damon Severson, as well as depth winger Miles Wood. They'd probably still be my preferred side in this game but it's a long season - we don't need to force plays when the value isn't there.
Instead, we're going to attack this contest with player props. I like backing Jack Hughes to record a point (-112) and/or an assist (+170) in what should be a high-scoring game.
Chicago is a bad defensive side and they will remain one even with Seth Jones. They were out-chanced by 21 against a Colorado team missing Nathan MacKinnon, and a lot of those chances came with Jones on the ice.
I think Jones' reputation far outweighs his value - especially defensively. Hughes is a great bet to take advantage of that.
While his counting totals didn't pop off the page last season, Hughes did create chances at a high clip. With another summer of development and an improved supporting cast, I think Hughes is poised for a breakout campaign.
It starts Friday against an overrated Chicago team expected to rest its starting goaltender.
The Anaheim Ducks rained on our parade against the Winnipeg Jets last time out. However, we're going right back to the well Friday with the Minnesota Wild.
I do think the Wild take a bit of a step back this year - part of last season's success can be attributed to unsustainably high PDO - but they still shouldn't have much trouble against the Ducks.
The Wild finished 14 spots ahead of the Ducks in expected goals for percentage at five-on-five, and both sides are returning similar rosters.
Anaheim will have a difficult time creating offense at five-on-five, as no team gave up fewer high-danger chances than Minnesota a year ago. Despite the loss of Ryan Suter, I expect the Wild to continue to suffocate their opponents on a nightly basis this year.
So long as Cam Talbot doesn't allow a softy, the Wild should take care of business.
Bonus round: I have my eye on the Vancouver Canucks (+130) against the Philadelphia Flyers (-150). I'd recommend pulling the trigger if and when news comes out that Brock Boeser will be available.
Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @ToddCordell.
A few weeks ago, Tera Black, the chief operating officer of the Charlotte Checkers, received a phone call from American Hockey League headquarters in Massachusetts. League brass had a question about the Calder Cup, which Charlotte won in 2019: "Are you guys planning on sending that back ever?"
The AHL championship trophy is 84 years old, and winners have repeated before, from the powerful World War II-era Buffalo Bisons to the Hershey Bears in 2009 and 2010. But no title reign has resembled Charlotte's.
The Checkers claimed the Calder Cup as the Carolina Hurricanes' farm team, and they now represent the Florida Panthers. They haven't played a game since March 11, 2020 after opting out of last season for health and safety reasons. Two-thirds of the team's staff were laid off, and COVID-19 stopped the AHL from awarding the Cup for a second year.
In a pandemic fluke, the silver bowl remained the Checkers' property - and they could call themselves reigning champions, give or take an asterisk.
Before COVID-19 and later when precautions allowed, the Cup was on display at fan events and backyard parties in Charlotte. The team's top hockey executive brought it to his beer league title game. During the season off, the Checkers printed T-shirts to celebrate their "three-peat," monetizing the irony.
The Cup was in Black's office recently, lying in a trunk within eyeshot as she contemplated everything that's changed about the franchise.
A roster that differs entirely from 2019 returns to play this weekend after 584 idle days. That amalgam of Panthers and Seattle Kraken prospects - the expansion club won't ice its own AHL affiliate for another year - visits Hershey on Saturday to open the Checkers' 72-game schedule. Finally, the champs are back, raring to defend a prize that none of them won.
"It's neat to be in a situation that will be reflected upon in the future as something that's historical. That will likely - and I'm knocking on every piece of wood around here - never happen again," Black told theScore.
"The Cup has such a storied history," she continued. "It's been really unique and nice to have it here in Charlotte for so long. It lets us continue the celebration into what seems like eternity."
Patrick Brown holds the Calder Cup in 2019. Icon Sportswire / Getty Images
The Checkers have played in Charlotte since 2010, when Michael Kahn, a wine and spirits wholesaler, relocated the Albany River Rats from upstate New York.
Before their Calder Cup season, fans elsewhere might have known them for losing the AHL's longest playoff game. Six hours and six minutes after puck drop on May 9, 2018, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms beat the Checkers 2-1 following five overtimes and Alex Lyon's 94-save masterclass in the Phantoms' net. Alex Nedeljkovic's 51 stops paled in comparison, and Charlotte bowed out of the second round a few nights later.
Backstopped by Nedeljkovic, the AHL's goaltender of the year in 2018-19, the Checkers bounced back to finish atop the league standings and reeled off 15 wins in 19 playoff games, coasting to the title. Morgan Geekie's double-OT heroics bounced the defending champion Toronto Marlies in Game 6 of the conference finals. It then took five games to finish off the Chicago Wolves in the title series.
Checkers captain Patrick Brown raised the Calder Cup first, and Black became the first woman whose name is inscribed on the trophy.
Like the NHL, the AHL paused its 2019-20 season when the pandemic started, but it didn't return in a protective bubble to crown a champ. To limit travel in 2020-21, 28 of the 31 AHL clubs played short schedules against divisional opponents. No league-wide playoff was held.
Charlotte retained the Cup without stepping on the ice. COVID-19 cases were peaking nationwide last January when the Checkers, Milwaukee Admirals, and Springfield Thunderbirds decided to sit out the season.
Charlotte's nearest AHL opponent plays eight hours away by bus, meaning the Checkers would have had to hit the road for weeks at a time. Rather than take on that health risk and play at home in front of zero spectators - a state pandemic mandate - the Checkers loaned players who weren't on Florida's taxi squad to the Syracuse Crunch, the Tampa Bay Lightning's AHL affiliate.
Layoffs thinned the Checkers' staff from about 25 employees to eight, and those left faced challenges, like keeping the ice frozen in Bojangles Coliseum, a southern home venue that opened in 1955.
With no games to prep for or attend, Derek Wilkinson, Charlotte's senior vice president of hockey operations, immersed himself in video scouting and studying analytics. The transition was jarring, just like when he retired as a pro goalie 20 years ago.
"Not going to lie: That first week after we decided not to play was well needed for a mental break," Wilkinson said. "But, boy, the days got long after that."
This all happened in the first months of the club's partnership with the Panthers - the teams aligned last September after the Checkers and Hurricanes cut ties - and as Black's business department tried to stanch the loss of incoming revenue. Instead of asking for refunds, most season-seat holders rolled their 2020-21 payments over to this campaign.
Indoor capacity isn't capped in North Carolina anymore, and with the caveat that COVID-19 is unpredictable, the Checkers expect attendance to rebound to past standards. In recent seasons, that's meant upward of 6,000 fans for each game.
"I think absence makes the heart grow fonder," Black said.
Martin Necas was on the Checkers' title team. Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images
Just like in 2019, the Checkers plan to sell beers for a buck during Wednesday home games, but the on-ice product won't resemble the title team.
Andrew Poturalski, Charlotte's top scorer in 2018-19, now plays for the Wolves, Carolina's new AHL affiliate. Martin Necas has graduated to the Hurricanes, Nedeljkovic tends goal for the Detroit Red Wings, Geekie scored a goal during Seattle's inaugural regular-season game, and former head coach Mike Vellucci is a Pittsburgh Penguins assistant.
When the Checkers affiliated with Florida, Geordie Kinnear became the team's new head coach, completing the former River Rats defenseman's full-circle journey back to the franchise. Kinnear was an assistant coach in Albany, then in Charlotte from 2001 to 2016. He shuttled between Syracuse and Sunrise last season, working with some of the Panthers' developmental projects - young guys like Grigori Denisenko, Aleksi Heponiemi, and Serron Noel - who play for the Checkers now.
In Syracuse, Kinnear watched Crunch coach Benoit Groulx foster cohesiveness between Lightning and Panthers prospects, as he'll need to do for the Panthers and Kraken this season.
When Seattle general manager Ron Francis was the GM of the Hurricanes, he helped build the Checkers' Calder Cup lineup, fortifying his relationship with Black, Wilkinson, and Kahn. Construction continues on Seattle's AHL rink in Palm Springs, California, so netminder Joey Daccord is in Charlotte on assignment from the Kraken. So are Luke Henman, the first player Seattle signed; Cale Fleury, the brother of former Checkers blue-liner Haydn Fleury; and Kinnear's assistant coach Dan Bylsma, who won the Stanley Cup and Jack Adams Award once upon a time as Pittsburgh's bench boss.
"We're all very eager to help each other out, where maybe before (the pandemic) we were very competitive," Wilkinson said. "I think we're all a little more appreciative of at least being able to play."
Understandably so. On March 11, 2020, Charlotte erased a third-period deficit to beat the Cleveland Monsters 3-2 in overtime, the squad's last win for 19 months. To come back from that repose, the Checkers have needed to restaff their front office, restock the inventory required to run T-shirt tosses and on-ice intermission contests, and implement COVID-19 safety measures - from cashless sales to player testing - that are already in place league-wide. When the puck drops against Hershey, Wilkinson expects he'll feel relief "to see it again, to feel it again, to be part of it again."
Two weeks ago, the Checkers took care of other pressing business, shipping the Calder Cup to the league's office in Massachusetts.
During the Cup's extended stay in town, the team's doctors got to bring it to their houses. It traveled all over Charlotte and to parts unknown, Black said.
"I won't mention the name of the shipping company that lost it for four days," she added.
Possession restored, the trophy sat in her office ahead of the team's final shindig as champs. Season-ticket holders were invited to skate at Bojangles Coliseum on the last Saturday in September. Some snapped photos of the Cup before it was returned to the AHL.
"We've had a lot of fun with it. But at the same time, it will be nice, I'm sure, for the league to award it to somebody in June of 2022," Wilkinson said. "Hopefully it's us again."
Vegas Golden Knights superstar Mark Stone was helped off the ice during the second period of Thursday's clash versus the Los Angeles Kings.
Stone was in visible discomfort after a seemingly innocent play in the Kings' end. He didn't emerge from the dressing room for the final frame, according to The Athletic's Jesse Granger.
Mark Stone is helped to the locker room with what appears to be a lower-body injury. pic.twitter.com/5FZtqRxCGA
Stone is Vegas' most important forward, and one of the league's top wingers. The 29-year-old led the Golden Knights with 61 points in 55 games last season while averaging over 19 minutes per contest.
He registered three assists in the club's season opener Tuesday against Seattle.
— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) October 15, 2021
The altercation began when Joseph hit Larkin into the boards from behind. The Red Wings captain responded by punching Joseph as he skated away. The Bolts youngster was slow to get up afterward.
Some extracurricular activities ensued, with Lightning defenseman Jan Rutta getting involved. Both Rutta and Joseph received two minutes for roughing.
Red Wings forward Tyler Bertuzzi ended up completing his hat trick on the four-on-three power play that followed the kerfuffle. Lightning head coach John Cooper expressed his displeasure with the situation postgame.
"Say what you want about the Joseph hit (on Larkin), there was no penalty called. At all. And then the melee starts and there's the attempt to injure. For us to come out of that four-on-three is mindboggling to me," he said. "I just don't know how that got rewarded, but it did."
Brandon Tanev scored the eventual winner on an empty-netter as the Seattle Kraken notched their first regular-season win with a 4-3 defeat of the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena on Thursday night.
Alex Wennberg gave the Kraken a 3-2 lead midway through the second period, and Tanev's insurance marker provided Seattle with a two-goal cushion with under two minutes remaining.
Predators forward Mikael Granlund brought Nashville back within one when he scored with 40 seconds left, but the Kraken ultimately held on.
The Vegas Golden Knights prevailed 4-3 over Seattle in the expansion franchise's first regular-season game Tuesday night. The Kraken are starting their inaugural campaign on a five-game road trip.
Jack Campbell took over in goal to start the final frame.
Thursday marked Mrazek's regular-season debut with the Maple Leafs. The 29-year-old signed a three-year contract with Toronto in the offseason after spending the last three campaigns with the Carolina Hurricanes.
Mrazek made 23 saves on 26 shots before his night ended.
